Maschmeyer, Women's Hockey, Shut Out Princeton

Despite finishing the game with more penalties and fewer shots on goal, the seventh-ranked Harvard women’s ice hockey team came out on top on Saturday at Bright-Landry Hockey Center, earning its first Ivy League victory of the season with a 4-0 win over Princeton.

Sophomore goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer saw 14 more shots on goal than her Princeton counterpart Kimberly Newell, with the Tigers (1-1-0, 1-1-0 ECAC) outshooting the Crimson (2-0-0, 2-0-0 ECAC) 44-26. Maschmeyer rose to the challenge in her second game of the season, and smashed her previous career-high of 34 to make all 44 saves and preserve the shutout.

“You know, it’s an interesting thing when you have the lead and you’re getting outshot,” interim head coach Maura Crowell said. “It’s probably more demoralizing for [Princeton] than for us, so I wasn’t too focused on it.”

Maschmeyer also played a crucial role in the team’s success on the penalty kill, as Harvard players saw the penalty box seven times during the contest. Despite the constant attack and even losing her stick at one point in the game, Maschmeyer remained unrelenting in net.

“Unbelievable,” said Crowell of the goaltender’s effort. “She came up with some insane saves, she saved our behinds quite a bit out there. She was a force.”

Despite the many man-up chances, Princeton just could not get a shot past the sophomore and the rest of the Crimson defense, and was unable to convert on a single opportunity. The Tigers were also unable to drill a single shot off in the final four minutes of the game.

“We put a lot of pressure on them and we battled hard on the boards,” junior forward Hillary Crowe said. “We’re a fast team so I think we capitalized on their mistakes, and then when we made mistakes, we made sure to get back and really aggressively make up for it.”

A large part of Harvard’s success came from its ability to do what Princeton could not, as three of Harvard’s goals came on the power play. The first strike came about halfway through the first period off a goal from junior Sami Reber. The forward converted on the team’s first power play of the game, slamming the puck in from the upper right corner off an assist from Crowe to take a 1-0 lead.

“I feel like we got off to a slow start, but I think we picked it up as the game went on,” Crowe said. “Getting that first goal gave us momentum that carried us throughout the whole game.”

Crowe did more than her part to keep the momentum going, as the junior matched her career-high and scored two goals off assists from freshman Briana Mastel and sophomore Miye D’Oench. It was a familiar storyline for Princeton, as the last time Crowe had two goals was in a 10-1 pounding of Princeton her freshman year.

After scoring her first goal in the second period to put Harvard up 3-0, Crowe drilled the puck from above the crease just past Newell’s right side into the goal. With only 6:08 left in the third period, it was the last time anyone would find the back of the net, and Harvard clinched the 4-0 win.

“Both were great passes. I was in the right spot at the right time,” Crowe said. “The first one, [Mastel] saw me and had a great pass. And then Miye just laid it in nicely and I had my stick on the ice.”

Junior Sarah Edney scored Harvard’s fourth goal, bouncing the puck off the right post and ricocheting it past Newell from the upper right corner late in the first period. The goal, coming with less than two minutes left in the period, sent the Crimson into the first intermission with a 2-0 lead in a game that was fast-paced from start to finish.

“It was definitely an exciting game with a lot of up and down [on the ice], almost a track-meet sort of style of game,” Crowell said. “But I’m happy with a lot of the things that came out of it, and obviously a 4-0 win against a very tough team is great.”

With victories over both Quinnipiac and Princeton this weekend, Harvard completed an undefeated start to its 2013-2014 season. While the team acknowledges that there’s still some work to be done as the season continues, a win is a win--and a win over Princeton is even better.

“We take pride in winning Ivy League games,” Crowe said. “We take pride in winning any game. But certainly it’s fun to beat Princeton...they’ve always been a rivalry of ours.”